We Need To Fix the Government's Misguided and Ridiculous Fuel Economy Standards

Look around you, at the American road. It's gravid with repugnant two-ton unibody seven-seat "crossovers." Swollen with bluff-faced, gas-guzzling SUVs blocking your sightlines, filling your rearview mirror with moronic menace, weighing down the flow of traffic with their ponderous, ignorant blind-spot swerving. It wasn't always like this, you know. Just twenty years ago, the roads were mostly filled with cars. Real cars, of reasonable size, height, and weight. Efficient, too. A lot of hundred-horsepower Accords and Cutlass Cieras that seated five in comfort. Twenty years before that, the highways of this country were almost exclusively populated by automobiles that seemed enormous to Europeans but when compared to the SUVs of today seem strangely delicate and restrained.

What changed? What made today's unpleasant, oversized automotive landscape the way it is? They'll tell you that it was "market forces" but that's a lie. They'll tell you it was "consumer preference" but that's a joke. It was the law. A stupid, inexcusable law called CAFE, which stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It was supposed to make cars more fuel efficient. Instead, it killed them and opened the door for today's "truck"-centric sales landscape. President Obama's actions during his presidency threatened to make that situation permanent—but President Trump has a chance to fix it, if he acts with swift certainty.

CAFE took effect in 1978. In 1979, it mandated a "fleet average" economy of 19.0 mpg for cars and 17.2mpg for 2WD trucks. 4WD trucks were permitted 15.8. But by 1985, the requirement for cars had jumped to 27.5mpg while trucks were allowed a combined average of 19.5. Over the next twenty years, this spread stayed more or less the same. The intent of the law was to recognize the simple realities of physics: it's much easier to get 27.5mpg out of an Accord than it is to get the same efficiency from an F-150.

What broke the system was the introduction of "trucks" that served the same purpose as cars. Some of them were just trucks with more seats in them: the 1990 Ford Explorer was really just a Ranger with a cap permanently welded on. Some were cars that were rebuilt to comply with the letter of the law, like the PT Cruiser. Others were strange hybrids like the unibody Cherokee and Grand Cherokee.

No matter how these "light trucks" came into being, however, they were all permitted to consume almost half again as much fuel as a standard automobile. This was a massive competitive advantage. You couldn't get a V8 in a mid-sized GM or Ford sedan, but you could get one in a Grand Cherokee or a Land Cruiser.

The Big Three quickly abandoned any pretense of full-sized car development, moving full steam ahead with a massive variety of SUVs. But the problem was that SUVs were worse than the full-sized cars they replaced. Heavy, thirsty, unsafe in a crash, prone to rollover. You get the idea. But the CAFE advantage wasn't done with its evil work quite yet. With the arrival of the Lexus RX350, born as the "Toyota Harrier" overseas, it was proven that customers would accept an "SUV" made from a midsized car as well. Before long, the Highlander, Pilot, Murano, Edge, and Traverse were all busy laying waste to the market shares of the cars on which they were based. The CR-V, Equinox, and Escape pulled the same trick on the compact class.

Forty-one years after CAFE was passed, it's managed to change the automotive landscape entirely. But instead of creating a world of efficient commuter cars as its drafters envisioned, the legislation has managed to turn the American family car into the American family truck. We are all worse off as a result. Say what you like about "crossovers" and the like but the fact is that when you turn a car into a truck you ruin everything from the fuel economy to the handling.

Beginning in 2012, as part of President Obama's decision to drastically accelerate requirements for increased economy across the board, CAFE was divided into four categories instead of two. There are now small cars, large cars, small trucks, and large trucks. The requirements, however, remain very much separate but unequal. In 2017, small cars must meet a fleet average of 44mpg. Their crossover counterparts? 36mpg. And large trucks? 25mpg. And over time, this inequality will actually increase until the final solution in 2025: a staggering 60mpg for cars and a comfortable 30mpg for large trucks. Another way to look at it: compared to the 1979 regulations, trucks are being forced to improve their mileage by 74 percent, while cars are being forced to improve theirs by 315 percent. That's insane.

Two weeks ago, the EPA announced that it would "finalize" its 2025 regulations earlier than expected. This action has no force of law; it's merely meant to enshrine President Obama's desires in writing before President Trump takes over. There is no reason that Mr. Trump could not change these regulations as he desires. Early indications are that he's not terribly impressed by the EPA in general. He might choose to lower CAFE targets a bit. He might choose to abolish them altogether.

I have a different suggestion, one that will probably manage to enrage both the tree-huggers AND the red-state conservatives. I think he should set ambitious CAFE goals that apply to both cars and trucks equally. Instead of 60mpg for cars and 30mpg for trucks, how about 45mpg for everybody? Let's stop playing favorites and picking winners. There should be one CAFE for everybody.

The automakers could handle this by making ultra-efficient cars and subsidizing them in order to keep the full-sized truck lines rolling. Or they could make full-sized trucks more efficient. Or they could abandon two-ton crossovers in favor of reasonably-sized family vehicles. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that we stop a program of legislation that actually encourages automakers to build trucks instead of cars. If President Trump can do that, then he will have done more to improve the automotive landscape in this country than any president since LBJ. And that would really help make America great again, wouldn't it?

Born in Brooklyn but banished to Ohio, Jack Baruth has won races on four different kinds of bicycles and in seven different kinds of cars. Everything he writes should probably come with a trigger warning. His column, Avoidable Contact, runs twice a week.

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